I'm Managing Editor for Business News at Forbes, helping to lead our print and online coverage of everything from Detroit to Washington to Hollywood. Previously I directed online news for The New York Times, was business editor of NYTimes.com and co-founded DealBook, a popular information service for Wall Street. Follow me on Twitter: @danbigman

It was the end of an era — but no one at the table knew it just yet. Not Kozlowski nor Charles Wang, the CEO of Computer Associates, nor the other executives invited. They were content to chat about their businesses, not knowing that dot-com bubble, blown for the better part of a decade, was just about to pop–and for Kozlowski, a long stint in prison was in store. I certainly had no idea. I do distinctly remember thinking that I had a lot to learn about business, because Kozlowski struck me as an amiable schmuck, a guy you’d have a few beers with at the second-rate muni golf course in your town, not a blue-chip leader and captain of industry. Clearly I just didn’t get it. What was I missing?

Why do I bring this up now? As I dug through my office for all the Christmas books I’d squirreled away all year to put them under the tree, I stumbled across a post-it note filled copy of Lessons From The Top and started flipping through it. As I did I was blown away by the people the authors had interviewed.

Yes, there are the insights of business legends like Southwest Airline’s Herb Kellerher and Charles Schwab and Fred Smith of FedEx and Bill Gates. But far more surprising, and rare, are the others — the failures and, in some cases convicted felons captured in amber just before the fall. If, as we hear all the time from leadership gurus, it is important to learn from failure, then this bunch has a ton to teach us.

The biggest lesson: a reminder that often, the most visionary, and hyped, leaders turn out to be completely filled with crap.

There’s Kozlowski, who became the poster boy for 90s-era greed and excess. Convicted in 2005 for swiping millions from Tyco International and was sentenced to 8 to 25 years in state prison. Here he’s talking up Ayn Rand as the basis for his success.

Just a few pages later we hear from Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron who died in 2006 shortly before being sentenced for securities fraud connected to the most well-known financial fraud of the decade, which set a new standard for creative criminal accounting. In this book, he’s concerned with concocting the right corporate culture.

Bernie Ebbers also gets his turn to talk up his leadership credentials–and his relationship with God. Of course, the king of WorldCom is now serving 25 years in federal prison for concocting one of the largest financial frauds in American history, costing investors more than $100 million.

Just a few years after that roundtable, Charles Wang left Computer Associates, the Long Island company he built, amid allegations of accounting fraud–for which his CEO Sanjay Kumar was eventually convicted and sentenced to federal prison. Wang was never charged with a crime, but a CA committee and Kumar both insisted he played a role in the fraud as they sought to recover more than $1 billion it had paid him, Kumar and other execs. Wang denies the charges.

Lesser known, but also in the book and worth remembering is Frank Raines, who helped mastermind the huge growth of Fannie Mae, the bloated and bailed-out lending giant who’s bad bets on the American housing market almost sunk the world economy. Raines resigned long before the bubble burst, taking retirement after settling civil charges that he’d received millions in compensation based on manipulated earnings. He agreed to pay $24.7 million, and a $2 million fine without admitting guilt. Here, he’s concerned with setting the right example as a role model.

So for those striving to run and build companies, a late holiday gift to you: a clutch of cringeworty quotes and breathless bromides uttered just before the fall. In 1999, all of these guys seemed smart and sensible and very much men of the future. Keep them in mind as you listen to the next great visionary.

Dennis Kozlowski, on the power of the individual: “In college, I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and then I read them again in my late twenties. Those books had an influence on me. They really focus on the contribution that the individual can make. Individuals do make a difference.”

Bernie Ebbers, on his growth philosophy: “It is not how much revenue growth you can have. The question is how much does it cost you for each dollar of increased revenue that you get? We focus on that because a dollar of revenue is not worth anything unless it is a profitable dollar.”

Ken Lay, on creating the right work environment: “I think, as a management team, all of us have put a lot of effort into trying to create a working environment where all of our employees feel…that they are part of a small company, or operating division, instead of a very large bureaucratic company. You can just sense that in the energy level when you come into the building.”

Charles Wang, on the most important thing: “I think to be a successful person, and CEOs are often very successful, you have to have integrity. Your word has to be worth everything you’ve got. You must have a moral compass.”

Frank Raines, on inspiring the next generation: “For a lot of these kids, the message that they take away after hearing me talk is ‘Well, he doesn’t look like any great shakes. If he can do it, I can do it.’…I embrace the role model notion. It’s not something I look for…but it’s something that’s going to happen anyway, and so I might as well try to do it right.”

Bernie Ebbers, on the role of the leader: “The way I see it, my function is not to be the most knowledgeable in any specific area. My challenge is to make sure that I have blue-chip players in each area–and we are fortunate now that we have a lot of Michael Jordans–and then try to get them to play on the same team.”

Dennis Kozlowski, on his management style: “I really believe in finding the best people in the world to run our businesses. We are very decentralized and leave them alone…But we really believe in putting out trust in the people we’re hiring and helping them through the difficult times and rewarding them in good times.”

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